Tapachula to Quezaltenango, Guatemala

Up early today for the border crossing into Guatemala, plus our "time" at the hotel/motel was up.

We asked a local guy standing at the fork of the road which way to go. He said right and before you knew it he was riding his motorcycle right beside us. He kept pointing to his shirt and saying in perfect English that he worked at the border crossing and could help us . We have crossed other borders and had locals help us for a small tip so we were not concerned about this guy. Boy, were we wrong. We made the worst mistake you can when in Mexico. You have to ask "how much" before and we didn't. This bandito saw us coming and got us good. The cost for the permit was only $40 plus some photocopying and he charged us $150 each bike. When we started to question him, he all of a sudden could not speak English. He became defensive and we thought we better suck it up and pay to get out of there. We have since heard this happens to other tourists and if you try to get across on your own it can take several hours and might even cause you to stay overnight at the border which is not a good place to be. At this point you have left Mexico and have not yet entered Guatemala so you are in no man's land. This bandito led us out of town to the proper highway and gave us directions to Quezaltenango and had the nerve to ask for a tip for his services. Again, what do you do. We each gave him around $10 and got the hell out of there. We will be smarter next time and negotiate the price ahead of time.

The roads to Quezaltenango are paved but rough with potholes. Not much for scenery but we were still stinging from our experience at the border.

Stopped at a gas station in Quezaltenango hoping to find directions to a nice hotel when a man riding a BMW bike stopped and offered his help. He said he could take us to a nice, cheap hotel with security for the bikes. We followed him downtown near the central square. From the outside this hotel did not look like anything we would check out but inside it was a typical colonial hotel with old tile and hardwood floors in our rooms. We met the owner and his daughter. The hotel is now 3rd generation with the 4th in training. The father has ridden his BMW bikes as far north as Alaska and south to Argentina. He rode until he was 85. His bikes were on display in the hotel. Maria and her family were very helpful and treated us like family.

We walked to the town square and met David. He watched us drink cervezas and wanted to shine our shoes but Wayne already had his done and Todd and Don had sneakers on. Diane had David shinedher sandals for 5 quezals, which is less than $1. David said he was hungry so we went to McDonalds (in the square) and bought him a big Mac combo. He sat on the floor near us and inhaled the food. We worked out a deal with him to follow us back to our hotel where he could shine 3 pairs of boots and Don's chaps. He sat outside the hotel in the entrance and worked hard shining our boots. They looked like new when he was finished. We paid him and tipped him well. Maria said that he probably has to turn the money over to his mother. We found out he did not have a father. We were glad that we had bought him something to eat. You could tell that David was grateful. He thanked us and went on his way.

Supper in the hotel was served to us by women dressed in traditional Guatemalan clothes. The ladies are quite short and looked so cute in their colorful clothes. We really enjoyed our stay at the Hotel Modelo and hearing about the history of the hotel from Maria and her family.